1. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
Lord Leverhulme famously complained
that 50% of his advertising budget was
wasted, but he never knew which 50%.
Network analysis may finally provide a
solution to this problem because of its
unique ability to identify and target the
most important members of any social
network or community.
Here's why...

2. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
Most types of networks that we find in
the real world, including many social
networks, are very robust.
They can absorb huge amounts of
random damage (i.e. people dropping out
of the network), before they break down
or cease to operate.

3. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
For instance, if we removed this node
from our network drawing what are the
consequences for our network?
The answer is - not very much.

4. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
In fact, we could remove rather a lot of
nodes like this from our network before
anything bad begins to happen.
This is because most of the nodes in any
network tend to be relatively peripheral
or unimportant in terms of their network
significance - the 80/20 rule probably
applies.
This means that when most nodes are
removed from a network the effects will
be very slight and the network will
continue to function quite efficiently.

5. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
However, what happens if we remove this
node from our network?
Immediately we can see that by removing
just one ‘key’ node results in a significant
network breakdown.
In this case the subgroup of which this
node was a central element ceases to
exist.

6. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
Likewise we could remove this similar
node on the right and achieve the same
result.

7. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
What's more, there's another node in the
middle connecting these two subgroups
together .
If we remove this node from the system
the network breaks in half and
communication between the two
subgroups grinds to a halt.

8. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
This demonstrates a fundamental
principle of network science. With most
nodes in a system being relatively
unimportant, the laws of probability
ensure that such nodes will bear the
brunt of any random attacks.
In many ways, ‘random attack’ can often
characterise the approach of traditional
advertising.
Despite the best efforts of media
planners to target a brand’s advertising
budget effectively, the ‘blunderbuss’
nature of much above-the-line
advertising means that a lot of media
investment gets wasted on ad exposures
to consumers that don’t represent an
advertiser’s target market.

9. The Influence Engine:
Network Science pin-points
the targets for brand
messages
However, the key nodes in a system are
incredibly vulnerable to targeted attack.
But if we modify one feature of this 'key
node' principle by swapping the word
"attacking" for " targeting", it means that
if we can find a way to identify key nodes
in a network we can increase our
leverage over, or ability to manage and
influence, that network.
This is precisely the core function of
network analysis and Dollywagon's
Influence Engine.